


Ace of Swords

by on_the_wing



Series: The Absence of Monsters [1]
Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Biting, Bondage, Does it count as non-con if it's a character's fantasy, Fantasizing, I guess I'll say non-con just to be safe because the original threat in canon was non-consensual, Intimidation, Knifeplay, M/M, My First Fanfic, My First Work in This Fandom, Threats of Violence, gosh this list sounds horrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 10:20:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6562513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_wing/pseuds/on_the_wing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Praxis and Deimos meet cute in the flashback in chapter 4, and it's love at first knife. Or something. Praxis, as we know, has a rather active imagination. We'll have to wait for the next story to find out what Deimos actually thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ace of Swords

Don’t ask me why we stood around in a mob in the common room. I guess there wasn’t much else to do on the transport up to base. I’m not that fond of mobs, but it seemed to be where things were happening, and you had to sign up ahead of time for the training stations. I stood near the edge of the room as a compromise.  
  
They all thought this guy from Five was hilarious. I couldn’t decide if he was more creepy or more pathetic. No one gets to talk to his navigator. No one gets to _look_ at his navigator. He’s going to scar his navigator so we know which one to avoid. How helpful. You haven’t even _met_ your navigator yet. Isn’t it a little early to play the abusive boyfriend?  
  
Maybe his navigator will end up scarring _him_.  
  
I noted with interest that no one was making gay jokes. It sounds like what I heard was true, and there’s an unspoken agreement to think of the navigators as women. A lot of them look like women, from what I’ve seen. All those delicate little blonds. Who knows what they would have looked like without the mods, though? And why would they mod themselves to look like that when they had the money to look like anything? Blond I understand, because that’s rare, but so small and fragile-looking? Maybe it’s the ultimate show of power: they don’t need to look physically intimidating to dominate others.  
  
The polar opposite of a navigator, Five was hopping around and screeching like a monkey, hanging off a ceiling pipe and trying to show off his unimpressive arm muscles. He had ridiculous monkey hair, too, sticking out in all directions in random lengths, with blue streaks down the front. I wanted to strangle him just to make him shut up.  
  
“Why should we do what you say?” I finally called out.  
  
“Oooh,” my right-hand neighbor breathed in a stage whisper. If he’d had popcorn he would’ve been slurping it up by the fistful, but all he could do was chew on a cig.  
  
I heard a soft little _snick_ from the left, and a knife pressed gently against my lower back.  
  
Without thinking I twisted around to look, and this tiny pale weirdo looked up at me through a slippery black forelock and smiled, raising a coy finger to his lips. Everything about him was smooth and pretty and compact, like the knife that I could only feel.  
  
“You’ll do what I say…if you know what’s good for you.”  
  
I barely heard the monkey’s threat from across the room. It was only words, after all, and there was something much more interesting—well, terrifying—tracing slow ellipses across my back through the thin material of my shirt. Sometimes I could feel the point, sometimes the edge. _What. What is he doing. Is he writing his name?_   My blood simmered and fizzed up around my ears. I wanted to turn and look at him again, but he seemed to prefer me facing forward. I could feel the sweat beading under my hairline, and all the oxygen was slowly draining out of my lungs.  
  
I had to breathe. I leaned back slightly, and a bright flash of pain shot through my back, forcing the air out of my lungs in a sharp gasp, and then back in. I glanced to the left again. The one visible eyebrow lifted, and the weirdo shook his head slightly, clicking his tongue in mock disapproval. His smile had not faded. Neither had the pain, since that little fucker was still technically stabbing me in the back. He didn’t move, but his hold was steady and it was clear that if I tried to get away his hand could move faster than my body. I forced myself to breathe through my nose and keep my expression neutral.  
  
I looked back across the room at Blue Streaks, but he’d already lost interest in me and was busy puffing up his scrawny chest at a couple of bigger guys like a horny, raucous pigeon. He was definitely not directing this show.  
  
The pain eased, and I looked back to see the weirdo slipping away. “Wait,” I blurted out.  
  
_Really_ , said the eyebrow.  
  
“Well I—I mean, what are you doing?”  
  
_Are you that stupid_ , said the eyebrow.  
  
“I get that you were threatening me, but why? What’s he to you?”  
  
The weirdo glanced out at the blue-streaked loser and back at me.  
  
“Don’t you ever talk?”  
  
Flat stare. The guy’s eyes—well, I could only see one of them—were huge and nearly colorless. Like looking into a glass of water, where you can see things through it but they’re distorted. Creepy. Does he even have another eye? Maybe he was born with only one and that’s why he wears his hair over one side of his face like that.  
  
“I guess n—” The blade was suddenly warm and smooth against my lips. I froze. It turned slowly, slowly, tickling, and I stifled a yelp as the corner of my mouth burned and opened to its point. The little psycho was looking up at me with a tender, abstracted expression, as if the knife were his baby and he was feeding it my blood. He placed his finger to his lips again, and I almost nodded in response. _I get it. I get it. All right._ I watched for the blade as it came back down again, waiting to see the blood and what happened to it—would he lick it off?—but the knife disappeared too quickly.  
  
What the fuck was I thinking? I looked away, wiping my mouth with a shaky hand, hoping no one had seen. There actually wasn’t more than a drop or two—he’s not a goddamn animal like someone else I could mention, marking people permanently in a spot everyone can see. When I looked back, he was gone.  
  
My arms and legs suddenly needed to _move_ , and I took off for the gym. I did some record sets that day, but I was uneasy because I had the feeling that people were staring at my back. It wasn’t until I took my shirt off to get into the shower that I realized why. When I stepped under the tap, the water hit that spot like a red hot poker. I could almost hear it sizzle. I probed it gently with my finger and hissed. It wasn’t wide enough to need stitches—probably—but it was bleeding again and was going to need some antibiotic ointment and tape. I could take care of that myself, though.  
  
It took all my willpower not to worry at the cuts for the rest of the day, but I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about it. What if he had caught me in some dark hallway alone, instead of in the common room with everyone else? What would he have done to me? You probably think I’m ridiculous to get worked up over this one tiny little guy, but I know a cobra is just as dangerous as a bull. Even if I’ve never met either one, what with the colonies being inhospitable to snakes and bulls alike. Some people keep small livestock, but it’s expensive, and most of our meat is bugmeal or vat-grown.  
  
When I got back to my bunk and the lights were finally off, I probed the corner of my mouth with my tongue. It seemed to have scabbed over. I tossed and turned, trying not to poke at the bandage on my back. What if he decided I wasn’t showing enough respect for Talks a Blue Streak and came for me in the dark? What if he hacked the lock on my door and crept in while I was asleep? He might slip under the covers so I didn’t wake, then climb on top of me and hold the knife to my throat while he pressed his hand over my mouth.  
  
He would have tied my hands to the bedposts first to keep me from moving, because I hadn’t proved that I could stay still, and how would he do his work properly if I didn’t stay still? He’s an artist, after all. He must be. And then—what terrible things would he do?  
  
He’d want to get me worked up and afraid first, of course, so he’d flick the blade open and shut close to my face a couple of times. Very close. And then he might stroke my cheek with the flat, then drag the point slowly up past my nose toward the corner of my eye. And just stop there, a centimeter away, the point delicately pressing into my skin, while he leaned on my chest and breathed into my open mouth. I would get lightheaded just from that, and he would lean forward and bite my lower lip hard to clear my head. Not hard enough to bleed, though. All spilled blood is for the knife to drink. It’s his pet and mouth both.     
  
He’d trace around the ball of my eye with the point, then slowly, slowly drag the edge along the line of my closed lids, just under the eyelashes. I’d be shaking so hard it would be difficult to keep still, and even with both eyes closed I’d know he was smiling. I’d ask him again why he was doing this, and I’d feel his sigh against my lips before he covered my mouth again with his hand.  
  
Finally he would bring the knife down to stroke my cheek again, and remove his hand from my mouth. I would exhale forcefully, and suddenly start laughing. He would give a disbelieving little snort and gently slap my other cheek. This would make me laugh even harder.  
  
He would clear his throat and sit up, throwing back the blanket to let the cold air surge in, gripping my hips with his thighs and digging his pelvic bones into my—oh. I would freeze and stare at him, just a silhouette in the faint glow from over the door. So small and sleek, but towering above me nonetheless.  
  
He would place his hand on my chest and press down gently, then up again. Down, then up. I would understand after a moment and take deep, slow breaths in time with his hand, trying not to think about where the knife might be. _He’s taming me_ , I would think suddenly. _Teaching me to be quiet_. And then, _did someone teach him to be quiet_?  
  
His hand would slide away from my chest, and I would stifle a little moan at the loss. He would pat my shoulder, and I would feel a tear slide down my cheek, and be glad it was too dark for him to see. But then he would lean down and lap it up, and I would freeze not only because he noticed but because the knife point was now in the hollow between my collarbones. It would press in incrementally harder as he delicately licked my eyelids and ran his tongue harder along my eyebrows. I would wonder, absurdly, if he’d notice if I started moving my hips very slowly. _You idiot, of course he’d notice. He notices everything_.  
  
The knife point would move slowly down my chest, burning, pressing deeper, leaving a thin wet line behind it, and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from moving, just a little, and whimpering. I’d be so hard, there’s no way he couldn’t notice, not when he was straddling me like that, pressing down against me, holding me between his legs. There’s no way a virgin alien robot couldn’t notice. God, what is wrong with me?  
  
He would laugh softly, pull the knife away, and take hold of my shirt. The knife would flash in the light from the door, and my shirt would rip all the way down, leaving me bare to the cold. And to him. I would suddenly imagine the lights coming on and a bevy of navigators trooping in to stare at me, whispering. But it would be just him and me and the knife, in the enfolding dark, and he’d be leaning forward to trace a dotted line of blood all the way down the outside arc of my arm, from bound wrist to tensed lats and then down my side until he reached his own thigh.  
  
I would be trembling so hard the bed would shake, and he’d look up at the top bunk, and I’d be glad that my roommate likes to go drinking in his friends’ rooms and crash there all night. Not that I _want_ a psychopath torturing me with no one around to help, but it would have been…embarrassing. You know what I mean, right?  
  
“He’s out,” I’d whisper.  
  
Another tiny chuckle—he knew!—and he’d lean down to lick carefully at the line down my arm. I know, I know, I said the blood was for the knife. He’s not licking the blood, he’s licking the _wounds_. When he reached armpit level he’d move to the line on my chest, starting at the bottom and slowly moving up to the first cut at the base of my throat. I would feel his teeth around it and arch up, gasping and crying out as my hips moved almost on their own even as he held me down and oh god I’m coming _no, no, no, fuck **YES.**_  
  
That um, was definitely not me just now remembering. Or me lying there that night, imagining it. I am not that perverted. On my own. It was just, you know, realistically, all that friction. And the licking. That would’ve done it. And I hadn’t been touched for so long. Shut up—two months is a long time.  
  
Anyway. He would sit up, shaking his head at my lack of self-control, and I’d make a sad, lonely sound as I felt him moving back off of me. His hand would brush against the shamefully wet and sticky front of my underwear and slap it lightly, making my hips jerk again. I would sob once as he climbed off the bed, trying to get my breathing under control as he walked toward the door, knowing I deserved to be left like this.  
  
Light would flare as the door opened, half-blinding me, and I would blink frantically in an effort to see him as he paused at the threshold to look back at me. _Is he smiling?_ It almost looks like a crooked little smile. And then the slice of light would narrow and disappear, and him with it, and I would be alone in the dark again, trapped and bleeding and waiting for rescue in a reverse echo of—that’s not what I thought then, of course. I’m not precognitive, hindsight just has depth perception. Ha. Ha.  
  
What I actually thought at the time was that I would probably be able to throw the covers over myself with my feet and legs, definitely enough to cover up my underwear, and probably enough to cover most of the ruins of my shirt and the cut on my chest. The line on my arm and side was facing the wall, so there was a decent chance that my roommate wouldn’t notice it when he finally came back and cut me loose. I hope. I would have to tell him it was a prank. Maybe that I’d had some friends over for a few beers and fell asleep, and they must have decided to play a trick on me. That would be plausible, for him. The people he hangs around with are like that.  
  
Having satisfied my real self that my imaginary self would suffer only moderate social damage from this punishment, I went to the bathroom to get cleaned up and then slid back into bed. After a moment I realized my hands were wrapped around the bedposts. _Well so what_ , I thought. _I can do that if I want_.

**Author's Note:**

> In my current headcanon the tragicomedy of Praxis is that in spite of being a prime hunk of beef with what he thinks are the best of intentions, he never gets laid, never ever. He could probably get with Ethos but he thinks of him as his virginal child bride who needs to be given a few years to grow up first, which, fair enough. The idea that Abel has been through shit is clearly important to Praxis, because it means he can understand Praxis’ pain and loss. Before all the pain and loss, though, I think he was just lonely. And, as he discovers, a bit kinky.
> 
> I may relent and let him have sex later on though if it seems plausible--we'll see.


End file.
